made the dogs men keep, and don’t You agree they’re alike, those two
breeds? Dirty, smelly, noisy, lazy, thievish, quick to attack when you
aren’t watching, quick to run or cringe when you are; they’re useless,
they create nothing, you have to wait on them, listen to their boastful
bayings, prop up their silly little egos till they’re ready to slobber
over you again …
I’m sorry. Jesus wore the shape of a man, didn’t he?
But he wore it–in pity–because we needed him–and what’ve we done with
his gift?
Before her flashed the image of a Merseian Christ, armed and shining,
neither compassionate nor cruel but the Messiah of a new day … She
hadn’t heard of any such belief among them. Maybe they had no need of
redemption; maybe they were God’s chosen …
Ydwyr caught her hands between his, which were cool and dry. “Djana, are
you well?”
She shook the dizziness from her head. Too much being shut in. Too much
soaking myself in a world that can’t be mine. Nicky’s been gone too
long. (I saw a greyhound once, well-trained, proud, clean and swift.
Nicky’s a greyhound.) I can’t get away from my humanness. And I
shouldn’t want to, should I? “N-nothing, sir. I felt a little faint.
I’ll be all right.”
“Come rest.” Stooping, he took her arm–a Terran gesture she had told
him about–and led her through the inner curtain to his apartment.
The first room was what she might have expected and what officers of the
base had no doubt frequently seen: emblem of the Vach Urdiolch,
animation of a homeworld scene where forested hills plunged toward an
ocean turbulent beneath four moons, shelves of books and mementos,
racked weapons, darkly shimmering drapes; on the resilient floor, a
carved and inlaid table of black wood, a stone in a shallow crystal bowl
of water, an alcove shrine, and nothing else except spaciousness. One
archway, half unscreened, gave on a monastic bedchamber and ‘fresher
cubicle.
But they passed another hanging. She stopped in the dusk beyond and
exclaimed.
“Be seated if you wish.” He helped her shortness to the top of a couch
upholstered in reptilian hide. The locks swirled over her shoulders as
she stared about.
The mounted skulls of two animals, one homed, one fanged; convoluted
tubes and flasks crowding a bench in the gloom of one corner; a monolith
carved with shapes her eyes could not wholly follow, that must have
required a gravsled to move; a long-beaked leathery-skinned thing, the
span of its ragged wings equal to her height, that sat unblinking on its
gnarled perch; and more and more, barely lit by flambeaux in curiously
wrought sconces, whose restless blue glow made shadows more like demons,
whose crackling was a thin song that almost meant something she had
forgotten, whose smoke was pungent and soon tingled in her brain.
She looked up to the craggy highlights of Ydwyr’s countenance,
tremendously above her. “Do not be afraid,” said the lion voice. “These
are not instruments of the darkness, they are pathfinders to enter it.”
He sat down on his tail, bringing his ridged head level with hers.
Reflections moved like flames deep within the caverns under his brow
ridges. But his speech stayed gentle, even wistful.
“The Vach Urdiolch are the landless ones. So is the Law, that they may
have time and impartiality to serve the Race. Our homes, where we have
dwelt for centuries, we keep by leasehold. Our wealth comes less from
ancient dues than from what we may win offplanet. This has put us in the
forefront of the Race’s outwardness; but it has also brought us closest
to the unknowns of worlds never ours.
“A witch was my nurse. She had served us since my grandfather was a cub.
She had four arms and six legs, what was her face grew between her upper
shoulders, she sang to me in tones I could not always hear, and she
practiced magic from the remembered Ebon Mountains of her home. Withal,
she was good and faithful; and in me she found a ready listener.
“I think that may be what turned me toward searching out the ways of